In early 2018, The Roar‘s then-AFL editor, Josh Elliott, broke out the crystal ball and had a crack at predicting his top 10 AFL players by season 2025.
Forecasting anything about sport a few months ahead of time is an impossible task, never mind doing so with more than a half-decade of water to go under the bridge – so it’s fair to say the task Josh set for himself was an impossible one to age perfectly.
Nevertheless, with the 2025 season starting to lull as half the competition sets its sights on 2026 and the other half begins to gear up in anticipation of September, it’s the perfect time to take a stroll down memory lane and remember just what possibilities could have laid in store all those years ago for some of footy’s most precocious talents – and some that never quite reached their potential.
First, here’s Josh’s full list and breakdown of every player from 1-10.
And, as a point of reference, here’s our official Top 10 AFL Players from the start of the season.
For his list, Josh didn’t pick anyone over 31 to be in his top 10 – perhaps not anticipating the rise of thirtysomethings in recent seasons – while naturally, he was unable to pick anyone drafted in 2017 or later. Nick Daicos, after all, had just turned 15 when that list was created.
Nevertheless, some of the picks – and what Josh had to say about them – have proved eerily precise seven years down the track; while, naturally, a few haven’t quite gone according to plan!
10. Ryan Burton
Age in 2018: 21
What Josh said: “His combination of supremely classy skills and the forward nous we haven’t gotten to see that much of at AFL level just yet says potential superstar, and he’s at a club that knows how to develop them.“
It’s easy to forget now, but back seven years ago Ryan Burton, just 24 games into his AFL career, was hot property.
Runner-up in the 2017 Rising Star Award (the winner, Andrew McGrath, hasn’t quite made good on his potential either), Burton looked set for a long career as either a damaging rebounding defender or big-bodied midfielder, averaging 21 disposals a game and starring with two goals in an upset Hawks win over eventual minor premiers Adelaide.
Fatefully, though, he’d be traded to Port Adelaide within 12 months of Josh’s prediction of future greatness, amid the Hawks’ desperation to bring in Chad Wingard, and while he’d become an important cog in defence, no one has since had him anywhere close to the top 100 players in the game, never mind the best 10.
Now 28 and with injury and form issues pushing him to the fringes at Port, Burton is a great reminder that players seemingly destined for greatness don’t turn out that way. What might have been, though, had he remained a Hawk.
Verdict: Not quite
Ryan Burton in his Hawthorn days. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
9. Joe Daniher
Age in 2018: 24
What Josh said: “He’s just at the beginning of his peak now and as the careers of Lance Franklin and Josh J Kennedy enter their twilight, he’s every chance to enjoy a few years as the AFL’s premier key forward.“
An All-Australian, best and fairest, Anzac Medallist and one of the biggest names in the game as 2018 dawned, Daniher’s career since Josh’s prediction can be nicely divided into two parts.
Unthinkable at the time, the famous name would play just 15 more games in red and black, as a series of injuries threatened to derail his career: in fact, from Round 7 2018 to Round 14 2020, he’d play just four of 49 games, along the way requesting a trade to Sydney that fell through.
Things took an upturn when he received his wish at the second time of asking, getting out of the suffocating Melbourne bubble en route to Brisbane: remarkably, in his four seasons at the Lions, he’d play every game in three of them.
Not always beyond criticism – his penchant to ignore teammates and go for goal himself made him a lightning rod whenever the Lions lost, and he never did add a second All-Australian blazer – Daniher by 2024 was among Brisbane’s most important players when, fresh off a stunning premiership for which he was among the key contributors, he made the shock decision to retire at 30.
There was a reasonable case, though, that during last season Daniher was well and truly entrenched in the AFL’s top 50 players, if not even higher: so we’ll give Josh a pass for not anticipating his early pulling of stumps, even if that top-10 prediction never quite materialised.
Verdict: Close, but no
Joe Daniher celebrates Brisbane’s 2024 premiership with injured teammate Lincoln McCarthy. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
8. Patrick Cripps
Age in 2018: 23
What Josh said: “His combination of height, strength and sheer ball-winning dominance is something that will never go out of style in the AFL.“
Daniher and Burton’s careers didn’t turn out as expected post-2018, but if anything, Josh underrated the now-Carlton captain!
To be fair, it was only from 2018 onwards that Cripps entered the true elite: just months on from making our list, he’d secure the first of four All-Australian blazers, secure 20 Brownlow votes in a Blues team that won just two games for the year, and head into 2019 as captain of the club.
Not without his detractors, especially given despite his stardom the Blues have featured in just four finals across his career, two Brownlow Medals – including a record-obliterating 45 votes last year – make him not just a Carlton legend, but a certified all time great.
At the start of the year, Cripps sat third in our experts’ Top 50 list – but I’d say given his ordinary (by his standards) 2025 season to date, Josh’s prediction of eighth is just about spot on.
Verdict: Pretty much nailed it
Patrick Cripps celebrates winning the 2024 Brownlow Medal. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
7. Charlie Curnow
Age in 2018: 21
What Josh said: “It might not be too long before we look at Cripps and Curnow as one of the scariest midfield one-twos in the competition.“
Yes, there really was a time when Charlie Curnow was expected to develop into a fully-fledged midfielder.
Like with Daniher, Josh’s Curnow prediction looked set to backfire spectacularly when injuries bit hard between 2019 and 2021, though a 34-goal 2018 did plenty to hint at the player he would become.
Since 2022, though, the star Blue has proved every inch a top-10 player in the game, with back-to-back Coleman Medals and a bag of tricks at least the equal of any other key forward going around.
The Curnow of 2025 is difficult to properly rate, because his struggles with form and consistency have continued from 2024, when he dropped in our experts’ Top 50 list down to 20th – and yet we all remember just how devastating he is at his best.
That’s why I’d say Josh got this tip right – he’s certainly been at least in the top seven regularly since this prediction was made – even if his prediction of WHERE he’d play his best footy was a bit off.
Verdict: Spot on
Charlie Curnow celebrates a goal. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
6. Jake Lever
Age in 2018: 22
What Josh said: “I hate to say it Adelaide fans, but I reckon we are going to spend a lot of time over the years to come looking at just how good Jake Lever is.“
Probably only once in his career has Lever justified Josh’s faith in him from seven years ago, mere months after being traded to Melbourne from the Crows.
But so good was he as an intercepting defender in 2021, and so crucial to the Demons’ first premiership in 57 years, that he comes close to justifying this top-six tip on that alone.
It’s easy to forget just how brilliant Lever’s partnership with Steven May was that season – Melbourne were virtually impossible to score on with those two patrolling the defence, and their All-Australian berths were richly deserved.
All up, though, Lever hasn’t quite reached the game’s elite on any consistent basis, especially now, having been recently dropped from the Demons’ AFL team.
It’s fair to say Josh was probably three years late on this one – had it been a 2022 prediction, though, he’d have been pretty spot on.
Verdict: Not THAT good
Jake Lever. (Photo by Daniel Pockett/AFL Media/Getty Images)
5. Isaac Heeney
Age in 2018: 22
What Josh said: “He’ll only keep improving as time goes on and as he finds the right balance between creative play through the midfield and drifting forward to kick goals.“
It basically took until 2024 for Josh’s call for ‘the right balance between midfield and forward’ to be heeded by then-Sydney coach John Longmire: after a swathe of injuries made it impossible to not shift Heeney onto the ball, he in an instant went from good but not great medium-sized forward into the best player in the game conversations.
A raging Brownlow Medal favourite up until a controversial suspension ruled him ineligible, Heeney added a second All-Australian blazer and maiden Swans best and fairest to his trophy cabinet – that his two All-Australian selections have come in Sydney grand final seasons of 2022 and 2024 speaks volumes of his importance to the side.
A genuine goalkicking midfielder, his numbers have only slightly dipped in 2025 from his extraordinary last season – and having been named fourth in The Roar’s Top 50 list earlier this year, Josh’s prediction from seven years ago has been well and truly vindicated.
Verdict: Nailed it
Isaac Heeney celebrates a goal in the 2024 qualifying final. (Photo by Matt King/AFL Photos/via Getty Images)
4. Christian Petracca
Age in 2018: 22
What Josh said: “You get the feeling watching him play that there is massive potential there just waiting to be realised.“
Petracca had already shown dazzling glimpses of his talent when Josh anointed him 2025’s fourth-best player seven years ago; his time since then has seen him ascend to be arguably the best player in the competition, before recent tribulations have severely impacted his standing in the game.
After officially breaking into the elite category in 2020, Petracca from 2021 to mid-2024 was an utter colossus: a goalkicking midfielder with explosive speed and strength, he was clearly the best player in Melbourne’s all-conquering 2021 premiership team, and crowned his season with 39 disposals, two goals and among the great grand final performances ever to win the Norm Smith Medal.
Even 12 months ago, having him in fourth was almost certainly unders: but after a horror end to 2024 that saw him suffer brutal, season-ending internal injuries, then seemingly have one foot out the door at the Demons after a public spat, he hasn’t quite returned to his very best in 2025.
Verdict: Yes, but not as spot on as 12 months ago
Christian Petracca celebrates one of his goals in the 2021 grand final. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
3. Marcus Bontempelli
Age in 2018: 22
What Josh said: “The only thing left to complete an elite midfielder’s trophy case is a Brownlow Medal – and I’d say he’s more likely than not to pick one of those up somewhere along the way.“
Imagine putting together a career so good that being touted as a future top-three player in the game at 22 is a significant understatement – even without that Brownlow Medal!
More than a decade after bursting onto the scene and almost instantly becoming the Western Bulldogs’ best player, most good judges still have Bontempelli as the best player in the game.
He does it all – kicks goals, wins his own footy, helps out defensively, steps up in the big moments – you name it, the Bont has done it.
Already a six-time All-Australian, six-time best and fairest and three-time AFL Players Association MVP – the latter only matched by the great Gary Ablett Jr – Bontempelli doesn’t need a Brownlow to cement his legacy as an all-time great.
Verdict: Somehow still underrated
Marcus Bontempelli celebrates a goal. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
2. Josh Kelly
Age in 2018: 23
What Josh said: “You’ll notice I’ve been well behaved and not included a North Melbourne player in this top ten list… but I’d like to dream that Josh will be one by the time 2025 rolls around.“
North tragic Josh has sadly copped a double blow here: not only has Kelly not quite lived up to the heights touted seven years ago, but he also rebuffed the Kangaroos to remain steadfastly loyal to GWS.
I don’t think anyone would have predicted that the All-Australian blazer claimed by Kelly as a 22-year old in 2017 would remain his only one, or that he’d only add one further Giants best and fairest to a trophy cabinet we expected to be burgeoning by 2025.
In many ways, Kelly’s career is a perfect reflection of his club’s: unquestionably highly accomplished, but still a touch disappointing in spite of that.
Verdict: Not as good as we thought he’d be
Has Josh Kelly’s career been slightly disappointing? (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
1. Eric Hipwood
Age in 2018: 20
What Josh said: “If you could pick one young player in the AFL to build a list around for the future, he’d have to be close to the first choice.“
Ah, the benefits of hindsight.
After a 30-goal year in a struggling Brisbane in 2017, Hipwood seemed well on track to become one of the best key forwards in the game – and a further 37 in 2018 as a 20-year old had Josh’s bold choice looking rather prescient.
But since then, he has become probably the only player on the Lions’ list to not improve along with the team’s fortunes as a whole since breaking into the eight in 2019 and remaining there ever since.
Consistently inconsistent, Hipwood has never kicked more than 41 goals in a year, while he has always remained a mobile second or third tall forward rather than the behemoth he seemed destined to become seven years ago.
In his defence, he has remained an important cog up front in a Lions team with enough star power to not need him to be anything more, and he’ll always be a premiership player.
But imagine being told in 2018 when Josh made this list that Brisbane were about to become the biggest powerhouse in the game – you’d have surely thought Hipwood would be a far, far bigger part of that rise than he has proved to be.
Verdict: Okay, no
